Dedicated to gravestone research and photography, personal family history, technology and research ideas. Guided by my inner light, I strive to help others enjoy their ancestors. Charter Member of the Gravestone Rabbits.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

On 22 August 2008, I received an email from Gaylord Cooper, who found this blog and wanted to tell me about his upcoming book about Gravestone Research.

He said , "I accidentally came across your page and blog. I teach Cemetery Iconlology--most like what you are doing--at several universities in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia--continuing education classes 43 week sessions--and I have written over 25 articles for regional, national, andinternational genealogy magazines and journals. Just wanted to say keep up the good work. This is a tool that has been underused for a long time."

It's nice to receive a "fan email" [and comments too!] but I almost forgot about his book until Amazon.com sent me a reminder email, one of those based on my past purchases. So, I slapped it into my shopping cart for my summer "professional development" reading.

According to some Web sites, Gaylord is a folkorist and storyteller, which fits into my ideas of making digital stories about my gravestone photographs. He is the Director of the Eastern Kentucky Storytellers Guild of Greenup, Kentucky. He holds a degree from Brigham Young University. I read and enjoyed an article he wrote for American Spirit, the DAR magazine [Nov-Dec 2008].

As I belong to a Flickr Group called the 2009 Book Challenge, where we take a photo of the book we are reading and report on it to each other, I am reading this interesting reference book on gravestones as my current selection. Let the summer gravestone hunting season begin!

1 comment:

I'm psyched to have stumbled upon your site. I love old cemeteries and gravestones. We used to play in one as kids and I remember being fascinated by the oldest stones - some of which dated to the late 1600s and were in very good condition. I was dismayed some 20 or so years later to go back and discover how degraded the stones were after such a relatively short span of time. I guess it's acid rain - it's really, really too bad. Anyways I look forward to reading more.

Author of this Blog

Retired professional genealogist specializing in gravestone photography, cemetery research and technology as it applies to genealogy. Author or co-author of ten books on educational technology and avid reader of mystery e-books. Wife, mother and grandmother too.